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What kind of education do you need to have a career in urban sustainability?

#sustainability #education #professional

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Jake’s Answer

This is a great question, and I'm pleased to see some fantastic answers already here.

The responses so far do an excellent job covering urban planning pathways that typically involve working directly for cities or municipalities. For example, Chicago's Planning & Development department has a dedicated Sustainability division focused on developing and implementing citywide and neighborhood land use plans, designing community engagement initiatives, and collaborating across City departments on active development projects. This division also supports the Zoning Bureau with design review and oversees the Chicago Sustainable Development Policy while planning for and acquiring open space. This represents an excellent pathway if you're interested in working directly with a specific community or region.

However, I'd like to offer an additional perspective, as there are many alternative careers that involve significant work in urban sustainability. Numerous private companies provide sustainability services specifically within urban environments. I work for a large real estate company in their sustainability department, where we focus on building and retrofitting office buildings for improved energy efficiency, developing and operating renewable energy sites like solar and wind farms, integrating clean technology such as solar panels and EV chargers into urban infrastructure, and providing sustainability consulting services to both cities and companies. Our work directly impacts urban environments through sustainable architecture and Net Zero real estate initiatives.

These private sector roles often have educational pathways through finance, engineering, environmental science, or business degrees, offering different entry points than traditional urban planning routes.

I hope this helps expand your view of career possibilities within urban sustainability beyond municipal planning roles.
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Jaycee’s Answer

Degrees in Economics, Political Science, Environmental Design and even Geography are going to be extremely helpful when looking at a career in Urban Sustainability. Urban planners work day to day with city governments and leaders in communities as they work to make changes.

A Master's program in urban sustainability requires seminars, workshops, and laboratory courses, to help you learn to analyze and solve planning problems. Depending on what environment you are interested in, it can also be valuable to take landscaping and architectural courses.

In addition to education, getting involved in your community's sustainability efforts as you study can really help tie your education and career goals together. You will be able to make connections and find your true passions in urban planning and sustainability.
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Chris’s Answer

Purely based upon the some LinkedIn research, it looks like the many people in this career obtain a Masters degree either specifically in Urban Planning or GIS.


Prior backgrounds come from a multitude of fields like political science, economics, engineering, landscape design, and more. Since Urban Planning impacts multiple areas, you may want to consider a broad topic like Economics. It provides broad exposure to a variety of technical analysis methods while introducing you to variety of economic topics. This could range from Labor Economics, Law & Economics, Economic Development, Public Finance and much more.

Many bachelors programs allow you to focus in certain areas while also mixing in other course work like geography, sociology, political science, engineering, and more.

Hope this is helpful.

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Katherine’s Answer

Urban sustainability is a broad topic, but I'm more familiar specifically with the tasks of urban planning.

Studying GIS (Geographic Information Systems) and planning and land use are critical to understanding urban designs. You might also consider specializing in active transportation (moving people, not cars) or stormwater management and control which are both big parts of the modern sustainability movement.

Master's degrees tend to be suggested in this field, which means that you'll need a Bachelor's degree at a minimum before considering postgraduate education.

Katherine recommends the following next steps:

Consider doing some research on the American Planning Association (https://www.planning.org/) website to learn more about education requirements for these careers.
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